


Death Remembered

by WerewolvesAreReal



Category: Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Angst, Funeral, Gen, Minor Character Death, Tarsus IV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-27
Updated: 2015-07-27
Packaged: 2018-04-11 11:33:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4433972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WerewolvesAreReal/pseuds/WerewolvesAreReal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Captain Kirk and Lieutenant Riley return from attending the funeral of Thomas Leighton.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Death Remembered

**Author's Note:**

> I'm writing a much (much, much) larger Tarsus fic right now, but this came to me in the meantime so I'm posting it in case anyone's interested.

_For death remembered should be like a mirror,_

_Who tells us life's but breath, to trust it error_

_-_ William Shakespeare

* * *

 

 

“That was a nice service,” says Kevin Riley. “I'm – glad we were able to make it.

Kirk nods. The lieutenant didn't know Thomas Leighton at all, not really, but his words are no less sincere for this fact. Neither of them say that Starfleet had no choice but to approve Kirk's request for the two to attend the funeral. The death of Kodos the Executioner and seven of the nine Tarsus survivors, once it was leaked to the media, caused too much of a sensation for the brass to deny him anything.

There should have been more people here, he can't help but think. The other survivors should be here. They aren't survivors any longer, of course. They were all killed by Kodos' legacy in the end. Even twenty years later, none of them could escape Tarsus.

“Let's get back,” he says. Riley agrees.

People are milling outside quietly, talking in low voices. A woman meets Kirk's eye and starts to approach him; he quickly averts his gaze and breaks into a walk, Lieutenant Riley at his heels.

They move through the station at a brisk pace once clear of the crowd, stepping faster and faster. Riley starts to breathe hard through his nostrils. He says nothing.

They might as well be running.

On Tarsus IV Kirk had watched over Thomas Leighton through famine and pursuit. Kirk had saved his life, though the burning wound that had destroyed half of the man's face and seared his eye could never be fixed. But Kirk had also let their connection wane over the passing years. It was unhealthy, he told himself, to cling to the past. Leighton has long ago ceased to be a half-starved child amid warring factions in Kirk's mind; it was not Kirk's duty to protect him. It never had been, really.

Maybe, if he had been watching better – if he had been watching all of them -

“Right, Sir.”

“Excuse me?”

“The transporter station – it's right, not left, I think.”

“Yes. Yes, you're right, of course.”

Outside the worried eyes of Spock and McCoy he's been looking through the files on the late survivors. They have all died within the past two years. He and Riley could easily have died, too. One day they will be dead, of course. For some reason that's never been such a disturbing thought.

No one will care about Tarsus once they're gone. Not really.

(Although, even Kodos _cared - )_

“You know Sir, I'm not sorry I didn't know him,” Kevin bursts out.

They're near the transporter station. Kirk stops. He feels like the Lieutenant has been waiting to say this; like he, too, has been waiting for this to be said. “Why is that?” he asks mildly.

Riley flushes. But he squares his shoulders, like he's readying for a fight, and lifts his chin to look at Kirk. “Just – just look at what I almost did, Captain, to that man and his daughter. And you know what the thing is? I don't regret it. I would have killed her and Kodos and I don't regret it.”

“You might have felt differently if you'd have succeeded in killing her.”

“I don't think so, Sir. And meeting him – it's all a reminder. Too many reminders, really. It's been so many years since I was there, on that planet, and I don't think about it. I really don't. Almost – almost never - “

There is a wide space of difference between 'never' and 'almost never'; Kirk knows this intimately.

He lets the Lieutenant keep his delusion, for the moment.

“ - I wouldn't – god, Captain, I'm sorry he's gone but I wouldn't have wanted to know him.”

Kirk nods equitably. “Do you want to be transferred?”

“What?”

“It's not an accusation, Lieutenant,” Kirk says. “It's not a reprimand, either. But I have to be just as large a reminder. Is that what you're telling me? It's alright if you are.”

Riley actually thinks about it, which is good. But he takes a breath, and his eyes are weary. “No, Sir,” he says.

“Can I ask why not?”

“Because – you stopped me.”

He probably should transfer Riley. There's a bleakness to him that didn't exist before. Kirk might be able to help him through it, or he might ruin the man further.

But, god help him; he  _does_ need reminders.

“I'm glad to hear it,” he says.

They walk to the transporter together and Kirk nods at the technician to beam them both aboard. As the crystalline blue wave of the transporter beam washes over them, Kirk looks over at Riley and watches him dissolve slowly, inexorably, into nothing.

 


End file.
